The present invention relates to position sensing.
A position sensor may be used to detect the linear displacement and/or angular rotation of moving objects and components in a variety of applications. For example, a position sensor may be provided to detect the movement of a human or a human body part. In one application, sensed human movement may be used to make diagnostic and/or anatomical determinations, such as by being used to study a human's range of motion or a human's kinesthetic activities. In another application, the movements of the human may be used to control the operation of a device or process. For example, a position sensor may be used in a computer interface device to detect a user's manipulation of the device. The detected manipulation may then be used to provide input to a computer system to control computer-generated objects and environments, to control physical objects, and/or to instruct the computer to perform tasks. In one application, a user interacts with a computer-generated environment, such as a game, a surgical simulation, a graphical user interface, or other environment generated in response to an application program, by manipulating an object such as a mouse, joystick, trackball, gamepad, rotary knob, three dimensionally translatable object, or the like, to control a graphical image, such as a cursor, within a graphical environment or to otherwise control the operation of the computer. In another application, the sensed motion of a master device may be used to control the movement and positioning of a slave device.
Conventional position sensors often either have relatively low resolution or are relatively expensive to manufacture. For example, a conventional analog potentiometer is inexpensive, but often has a linearity that varies by over 5%. Thus, the potentiometer offers poor accuracy when used for large ranges of motion detection without detailed calibration. Optical encoders, which operate by alternately allowing and preventing an emitted beam to be detected by a detector, have resolutions limited by the spacing of encoder divisions. The higher the resolution, the more closely spaced the encoder divisions must be. However, as the encoder division spacing is reduced below about 2 mm, the costs associated with the encoder wheel or bar, the illumination, the detectors, and the alignment features increases above that which is acceptable for mass production of low cost products. To gain a higher sensing resolution and to allow for the direction of movement to the determined, quadrature is often provided by using two detectors, which are 90 degrees out of phase with one another. This allows one detector to sense a threshold amount of light before the other detector when the slotted member is moved and causes the other detector to provide a detection signal out of phase with the first detector, thereby increasing the resolution since additional position detections are made, and allowing for the determination of the direction of movement by comparing the detected signals. Even higher resolution can be provided by interpolation between the slots. However, high resolution encoders are often too costly to implement in low-cost, high-volume consumer products. Alternatively, magnetic encoders, which count magnetic domains of opposite polarity, and electrical encoders, which count alternating strips of conductive and insulating material, may be used instead of the optical encoder, but these also have the resolution and costs issues of the optical encoder.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a position sensor which may be manufactured for a relatively low cost and/or which has a relatively high resolution. It is further desirable to provide a position sensor that may be used to improve the performance and/or lower the cost of a computer interface device.